Photo credit: Claudine Hellmuth

The amazing artist, Claudine Hellmuth, sent me an adorable Retro Oven Cupcake Box from her Etsy store to review for the blog. I was more than excited. I’ve been a fan of her shop for a while and had fun putting this little box together. It is available as a .pdf file and you can print as many of these cuties as you want! The file has all five colors (Red, Pink, Yellow, Aqua, and Green) in it as well as some cute oven mit tags, a cupcake tray, and some editable cupcake flags that can be attached to toothpicks.

Photo credit: Claudine Hellmuth

The first thing I did when I got the file was print out the blue oven. You need card stock, scissors, glue or a tape roller, and a scoring device to make these. You will also need an exacto knife to cut out the circle in the cupcake tray, and if you want, the window on the front of the oven.

Although it was pretty easy to construct, there were a couple parts that got a little tricky. I’m sure if I made these regularly I’d get pretty quick, but for a first time, it took me about 20 minutes in all to get this put together. I’d suggest watching her instructional video in addition to reading the written directions, because she gives you a few tips that make it easier to build and some ideas to make it look cuter.

I think mine came out pretty good! I’d love to make the other colored ovens too. They’re just so cute.

One thing I liked about these is that the ovens are a bit tall. There is enough room for cupcakes with toppers or tall frosting. The ovens would even be great for other small items like bags of candy, gift cards, small presents, etc.

Another great thing is the price. You get all 5 oven colors, 1 cupcake tray, 8 cupcake flags with editable text, and 4 oven mitt shaped gift tags for $4.99! And you can print as many ovens as you want! Claudine even sells a commercial license for a one time fee of $20 per favor box design if you want to sell your own baked goodies in them. That’s a great deal.

Make sure to check out her shop to see all of her other designs. Not only can you find several other adorable favor/treat box designs (like an ice cream truck), you’ll also find printable dolls, decorations, and digital scrapbooking sheets. Most of her designs range from $4.99-$5.99. So affordable and very high quality.

Claudine Hellmuth is an artist and illustrator. She loves creating “quirky, retro-whimsical” artwork to license to the gift, home and craft markets. She’s been featured in The New York Times, appeared on The Martha Stewart Show, HGTV and The DIY Network, and in 2012, launched an exclusive paper crafting line with the Home Shopping Network.

If you like her designs, make sure to follow her on Facebook, Twitter, and her blog. Also don’t forget to visit her website and sign up for her newsletter! The newsletter includes free printables and alerts you to new items in her Etsy shop.

What’s your favorite item in her shop?

Receiving these products was exciting for me because they are flavors I don’t usually work with. Here’s a run down of the products:

• Duff Goldman by Gartner Studios Red Velvet Cake Mix - Duff’s premium cake mixes use low protein and low gluten flour, which makes for a lighter, fluffier cake.
• Duff Goldman by Gartner Studios Raspberry Cake and Cupcake Filling - Add a flavorful, tasty center to cakes and cupcakes with Duff’s zingy new Raspberry filling. It’s extra delicious when paired with Buttercream or Cream Cheese frosting. Which brings me to the last product for review:
• Duff Goldman by Gartner Studios Cream Cheese Ready to Serve Frosting - Reach for the most delicious, easily spreadable frosting available, from the Duff Goldman by Gartner Studios collection. Other delicious flavors include: Fudge, Chocolate, and White.

Over the years I’ve noticed a negative stigma attached to boxed cake mixes and pre-made baking products. I know that “from scratch” recipes usually turn out better quality products and allow for experimentation more easily, but boxed mixes have their place too! When my boyfriend and I were making these red velvet cupcakes this week, he commented how much easier and less of a hassle it was to use these Duff products than it was the last time he helped me make cupcakes from scratch. It really was a lot easier and created much less of a mess to clean up later too. That’s why I don’t look down on boxed mixes. They definitely have their place when you just want to make a quick batch of cupcakes without having to devote your whole afternoon to them.

The Duff red velvet cake mix was simple to mix together. All you needed was some water, eggs, and oil. The batter itself was a little thinner than I expected, but didn’t effect the final product negatively. In fact they were very light and airy while still having a density that made them hold up well. The batter had a lot of red dye in it though. So much so that it stained my skin! But it washed off fairly easily. I’m not sure how easily it would have washed out of clothing though, so that’s something to keep in mind. Look how red it was!

The ready-to-use raspberry filling came in a sealed plastic bag, so I just snipped off a corner and squeezed it into the centers of the cupcakes after coring them out with a large frosting tip. Then I took the center part out of the frosting tip, cut off the excess cake and placed the top part back on the cupcake once I filled it. The filling is sweet and slightly tart. If you like really tart raspberry flavor you might find this a bit sweet, but it isn’t overpoweringly sweet. And it paired well with the cream cheese frosting flavor.

The cream cheese frosting was one of the best canned cream cheese frostings I’ve ever tasted. It was also sweeter than most homemade cream cheese frostings I’ve made. Its main draw back was that it was rather thin so it isn’t very good for piping tall frosting. Whipping it and maybe adding a little powdered sugar to it might help thicken it a bit, but it’s best for frosting with a spatula in a thin layer on top of the cake. These cupcakes didn’t need a lot of frosting though, because there was already so much flavor in them. The the slight cream cheese flavor definitely went well with the red velvet and raspberry flavors of this cupcake.

Overall, I was very impressed with these products from Duff Goldman by Gartner Studios. I was worried they’d taste dull because they are a mass produced product, but surprisingly, they had a lot of flavor and nice consistency. I would definitely recommend these products to others, especially those who want quality cupcakes in a short amount of time.

BUY IT

You can find these products at several stores including Michaels, select Walmart and Target stores, or online at www.duff.com.

CONNECT

Stay up-to-date on all things Duff Goldman by Gartner Studios! Follow on Facebook and Twitter.

WIN IT!

One lucky reader will win their own package of Duff products! The package will have the same items I reviewed above including the Red Velvet Premium Cake Mix, Raspberry Cake and Cupcake Filling, and Cream Cheese Ready to Serve Frosting.

Open to U.S. residents of all ages only. Giveaway ends 6/30/13 at 11:59 pm EST.

Click HERE for complete giveaway rules.

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These little crepes are one of my favorite things to have for breakfast. My mom came up with the recipe trying to recreate something her dad used to eat when she was a kid. It only has three ingredients and is high in protein!

I like to jazz mine up with butter and a spread of my favorite Ikea lingonberry jam. Since the crepes are made with cottage cheese, many different toppings would taste good with these. You could try fruit, jams, syrup, cream cheese, etc.

I’ll be giving away five 2″ stickers! Open internationally. All ages! If you’re under age 18, ask your parents for permission to enter.

To enter just leave your name and email address in the giveaway widget below.

Official Rules

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SKC turned 2 on March 29th but due to general laziness, it’s taken me until now to celebrate with a small giveaway. It’s not much, but I wanted to thank my readers with a little something. There are 3 packages available for this giveaway which means 3 WINNERS!

If you’re in the US, you can enter any of these giveaways! Anyone outside of the US may enter the giveaway for Package #3. Good luck!

To enter either of these giveaways you must be at least 18 years old. I will be shipping Packages #1 and #2 personally and that is why they are US only (shipping is expensive!).

For complete giveaway rules click here.

Package #1 (US Only):

• Pack of notecards
• Cupcake toppers
• Cupcake liners
• Bag clips
• $5 Starbucks gift card
• 200×200 Ad space

Package #2 (US Only):

• Pack of notecards
• Pumpkin cupcake toppers
• Cupcake liners
• Frame ornament
• 150×150 Ad space

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Package #3 (Worldwide):

• $10 Amazon gift card or Paypal cash
• 100×100 Ad space

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I’ve always loved peanut butter and jelly sandwiches so I decided I’d try making one as a cupcake. There are many recipes out there making different versions of this cupcake, but none were exactly what I wanted. For example, I’d see a cake recipe I liked but didn’t like the frosting that went with it or I didn’t like how the jelly was used in the cupcake, etc.

I knew from the start I wanted to use my favorite jam/jelly I get from IKEA. Made from lingonberries, it’s a perfect blend of sweet and tart. Lingonberries sort of tast like cranberries. This the same preserves IKEA uses in its Swedish meatball meal from their restaurant. For the peanut butter, I used Trader Joe’s natural peanut butter. The recipe I used for the cupcakes from Taste of Home uses the overly processed sweet peanut butter, like Jif or Skippy, but the natural peanut better worked just as well.

When the cupcakes were done baking, they smelled like delicious peanut butter cookies. I put the jam in the middles of the cupcakes once they were done cooling. I used my #1 Wilton frosting tip (one of the large ones) to cut the holes out. Save the little piece of cupcake that you cut out of the center and cut off the top of it. This top will be put back onto the cupcake like a cap on top of the jam filling. To make the jelly or jam easier to spoon, slightly warm it in the microwave for 10-15 seconds. You don’t want it hot, just a little more runny so it will fill the hole nicely. This is especially good for jelly you pull out of the fridge.

The frosting is super easy. This Quick Vanilla Buttercream Frosting from the Food Network is a good one for this recipe. If you want more peanut butter flavor you could use a peanut butter frosting like the one that accompanies the Taste of Home recipe above, but I think the cupcakes have plenty of peanut butter flavor on their own. I was only able to get about 15 cupcakes from the the recipe despite it being labeled as 18 servings. If you pile your frosting on like I did, make the whole recipe from Food network. If you only thinly frost the tops of the cupcakes, you could probably get away with only half a recipe.

Garnish the tops of the cupcake frosting with a little more jelly/jam. You might want to warm it up again for this, as it was much easier to drizzle the jelly when it was more liquid.

This was a very simple recipe to put together. I was happy to find that I already had all of the ingredients for this one in my kitchen which almost never happens! Now you can have PB&Js for lunch and dessert!

I love the combination of the ingredients in the unfortunately named alcoholic drink the Irish Car Bomb. It includes Guinness Stout, Jameson Irish Whiskey, and Baileys Irish Cream liqueur. It’s called Irish because of the Irish alcohols used in the drink, but the drink originated in America. The “car bomb” part of the name in part refers to the shot of Baileys with whiskey floated on top, being dropped or “bombed” into a glass of Guinness, but also to the history of car bombs that have plagued Ireland in years past.

Many find the name offensive, but that’s the point isn’t it? Alcoholic drinks are named outrageous things so that people remember them, for example: Agent Orange, Kamikaze, Redheaded Slut. Alcoholic drinks tend to be offensive. That’s just how it is. I’m not here to judge, I’m just here to bake! So let’s get to it!

I used Brown Eyed Baker’s “Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes” recipe to make these but changed a few things about the recipe to suit my own needs. First, I decided not to call what I made Irish Car Bomb cupcakes, mainly because I chose to use Carolans Irish Cream instead of Baileys and many would not consider it a true “Irish Car Bomb” without the holy trinity of Guinness, Jameson, and Baileys. For the purposes of this recipe, Carolans Irish Cream works just as well for the frosting, but if you want the more authentic taste of Baileys, I’d suggest using the exact recipe from Brown Eyed Baker.

The other thing I decided to try was splitting the batter into two, making one half as Brown Eyed Baker did, and the other with dairy substitutes for the heavy cream and sour cream. They aren’t completely vegan, but my boyfriend prefers less dairy in his diet, and I wanted him to be able to eat these too! Plus he helped me make these, so it was only fair to make something he could eat.

For the less dairy version of these cupcakes, I used almond milk in place of the heavy cream, and vegan sour cream instead of regular sour cream. The vegan sour cream didn’t quite taste like real sour cream, but since it was mixed into the batter, the taste didn’t matter much and it moistened the cake just like the regular sour cream did.

Amazingly, the alternative batter cooked up better than the regular batter. The less-dairy cake cooked faster and rose better than the regular cake. I had to cook the regular cupcakes longer than what the recipe suggested. Not sure what I did wrong with Brown Eyed Baker’s recipe. Also, the almond milk ganache thickened quicker than the heavy cream one (which is good). It was interesting how different the two batters worked out.

Taste wise, the cupcakes were about the same. You’d never miss the dairy products that I cut out of the alternative cupcakes. I could taste the Guinness in the cake as well as the whiskey in the ganache. I would have liked more of a whiskey flavor though. You might want to add a little more whiskey to the ganache if you like the flavor. The frosting was a little sweet for my tastes on its own, but the bittersweet ganache counteracts the sweet well when it’s eaten all together.

Speaking of the frosting, the recipe calls for 2 cups of butter! That’s a crazy amount. One reason my frosting might have been too sweet is because I chose to use less butter but only cut the powdered sugar buy one cup. Therefore, I might have used too much powdered sugar for the amount of butter. If you cut the butter down, make sure to proportionally cut the confectioner’s sugar too, or it could end up too sweet like mine (unless you like really sweet frosting).

These cupcakes are really rich and boozy: a perfect way to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. Although the recipe says they only take one hour to make, I highly doubt anyone could finish these in an hour unless you are a quick professional baker. They took me several hours to prepare, mix, bake, and frost, and that was with help! Doing these on my own would have been difficult. I’d suggest making these with a friend, and then drink the extra alcohol while you’re waiting for them to cook. Keep in mind that these cupcakes do have a slight alcohol content, because the ganache and frosting do not have the alcohol cooked out of them. They are not for those under the legal drinking age.

Have a fun and safe St. Patrick’s Day and drink (and eat) responsibly!

I’ll be changing things up a bit with today’s post. Instead of baking I’ll be talking about clothing. Specifically, I’ll be reviewing a dress I got from eShakti.com. eShakti, a vintage inspired woman’s online clothing store, specializing in customizable pieces ranging from sizes 0 to 36W, contacted me to ask if I was interested in reviewing a piece of clothing for them. So, wait, I get to review a cute piece of clothing, and I get to keep it? Uh, yes please!

Thus began a long drawn out process, all of which was my fault. I knew they were offering to give me free customization on the piece I was to review, but not being familiar with such an opportunity, I chose one of their standard sized dresses, because the measurements where pretty close to my own. That was a mistake. Why get a dress that’s “pretty close” to your size when you can get a dress that is exactly your size?!? Yeah, I don’t know why I didn’t think it through better.

Her Fifties Sundress in poppy red. image ©eShakti.com

After browsing their many pieces, I decided on the Her Fifties Sundress in crimson (I don’t think this color is available anymore but the “poppy red” looks similar). The first dress I received (the standard sized one) was too big in the bust which made everything fit all wrong. I could have reviewed this dress, but I really wanted to see what the dress would be like if it fit right. Luckily, eShakti.com has amazing customer service, and allowed me to return the item and order the same dress with my customized measurements this time. Generally, customization only costs an extra $7.50, which is an amazingly affordable price. You can also choose to change the neckline shape or alter the sleeves or hem length if available for the piece you want to buy. Find out more about their customizeable options here.

image ©eShakti.com

A few weeks later, after receiving the ill-fitting dress, returning it, and receiving the better fitting dress, I finally had a great piece to review. I have got to thank eShakti for working so closely with me to get me a product that I would love! Here is all the good and bad about the dress I received:

Bra strap snaps

PROS:

• Comfortable
• Lightweight
• Cute retro style
• It fit well with my customized measurements
• The dress is well made
• It has snaps under the dress straps where you can attach your bra straps to hide them (refer to the picture to the right).
• There is an invisible side zipper to give you more room to get the dress on (although it was a little difficult to zip up).
• It has pockets (but you can get it made without pockets if you like).

Sorry for the pit shot!

CONS

• Wrinkles easily
• It shows sweat stains very easily and also my deodorant really liked to rub off onto the dress (if you got this dress in black, the sweat problem may not be as noticeable).
• Without a petticoat, the skirt is a little limp.

Overall, the pros outweighed the cons. I really love this dress, though I might have to wear a cardigan over it to cover those pit stains!

eShakti has so many styles to choose from. With their spring line just released, you have a lot of new pieces to browse including dresses, skirts, and tops. Also, for any upcoming brides out there, they have a great bridesmaid dress section set up to help you find the perfect fit, color, and style for all your bridesmaids!

Besides having great clothes, I really like that everything on eShakti is very affordable, the shipping is quick (even for customized pieces), they can make items in so many sizes, and the customer service, in my experience, has been quick to reply and helpful.

Now for the fun part!

BUY IT: They are offering my readers 20% off with the coupon code SHNESKLLER (expires 3/20/13).

UPDATE (3/4/13): Good news! Due to a glitch, some blogger coupon codes did not work when people tried to use them, so they’ve fixed the issue and have extended the 20% off offer until March 20th!

According to the website, if you’re new to eShakti.com you can save $25 on your first order if you register with their site! Not sure if this is stackable with the coupon code above but it’s worth checking out.

Giveaway

WIN IT: On top of all of these great discounts, they are also giving away to one of my readers one item of choice under $75 from eShakti.com! Fantastic!

To Enter: Fill out the Rafflecopter widget below. The only mandatory entries are to enter your name and email address and to follow eShakti on Pinterest. If you don’t have a Pinterest account, you can sign up for one here for free.

Time period: Giveaway begins on 3/1/13 at 12:01am EST and will end on 3/22/13 at 11:59pm EST.

The Prize: One item of choice under $75 from eShakti.com.

Giveaway is open to all legal residents of USA and Canada who are 18+ years of age.

Complete Official Giveaway Rules

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I found a bunch of boxes of it for $0.99 each at Grocery Outlet a while ago and stocked up. I think it’s still sold in regular grocery stores, but the box might look a little different now. It comes with the cake mix and a packet to make the chocolate mousse topping. Both are super easy to prepare, and if cooked right, the cupcakes will turn out moist and delicious (I cook the cupcakes for about 20 minutes at 350 degrees F, checking them at 15 minutes).

I have not tried making it into a layered cake like the box suggests, but I have made it into some great cupcakes multiple times. I like to add chocolate chips or other candy to the batter before cooking.

The mousse topping is light and fluffy, almost pudding-like, and very tasty. It’s easy to make too! All you have to do is add some milk to the packet of mousse powder and voilà!: mousse topping! It would be a good dessert all on its own.

This was my last box, I hope I can find it at the store next time. Doubt I’ll find it for $0.99 again though.